Show STUD EXT LIFE In revolutionary France no phase of life or feeling is of long duration The emotional moment passes quickly and the messe de minuit is scarcely over when the rush to the restaurants begins for now comes the reveillon as it is called literally a waking up but a waking up that comes after no sleep that continues often until sunrise and one which is solaced by much eating and drinking This is the time for little parties at the restaurants for family reunions for student banquets It is especially the moment for small gatherings of conXo time is more vivial spirits joyous for the student in the Latin Quarter or the artists that swarm about Montmartre than the Christmas reveillon For days beforehand the tables in the fashionable boulevard restaurants are reserved for the occasion and everyone wants to give or get an invitation to celebrate this early with his morning breakfast friends A Parisian with no reveillon after the mass is as lonely and forlorn as a friendless New Englander on Thanksgiving day A Christmas eve so crowded with merrymaking doesn’t naturally leave much holiday spirit for Christmas day The youth of the nation is usually fast in the clutches of a prodigious Katzen-jammwhile their elders spend the da' soberly in church going and calling on friends A German or American is much surprised to find that gifts play so little part in a French Christmas but these are reserved for New Year’s For a Frenchman Christmas is truly a rel igious festival and his reveillon table excesses are only an indirect expression of what the church tells him should be joy over the birth of a Savior over the waking up of humanity to a new era of Christian happiness er |